This is ofcourse just based on my observations and I am liable to be wrong...

People have different kinds of personalities and temperatments and problems so do we need Shaykhs who specialise in a certain thing to solve a certain problem? To start with everyone with Love/Romance/Lust problems should be directed to Shaykh (Hakeem) Akhtar Saheb's silsila...

Am I right or wrong? Comments please.

But my comments shouldn't be misunderstood to mean that other Shaykhs can't solve these issues but just my humble observation about certain Shaykh who highlight and emphasize certain things...

Put it this way a shaykh/alim is different to someone who is a spiritual doctor, not all shaykh/alim has been given the ability to follow a specific silsilah. Only such person has been given the order through spiritual reformation themselves. There is a specific person who was a spiritual doctor yet not an Alim...I dont want to say his name off hand in case I have got the incorrect person in mind.

A spiritual doctor, such as shaykh hakeem akhter sahib r.a. will be trained in all aspects of diseases of the heart not just, lust, desire etc.

Liken the silsilahs to madhabs, the aim is the same but the methods and approaches differ.

Same as spiritual doctors who have chain of training from a specific order.

Liken the same spiritual doctors for example to 4 different medical doctors. Whereas the spiritual doctor deals with the spiritual illnesses of the heart, the medical doctor treats the physical illnesses of the body.

So if we were to visit each one of these doctors for a specific medical condition we would find that each doctor would have his own method of treating a patient...one doctor may prescribe antibiotics, the other painkillers, another may send you for a scan, and so on, this does not make anyone of these doctors treatment incorrect the cure comes through each individual doctors experience and training.

Therefore it would be foolish of us to go to different spiritual doctors, similar to jumping from madhab to madhab, and go from one doctors unfinished treatment to try another doctor's treatment.

AssalamuAlaykum, i agree with taalibah aapa with regarding consulting a single doctor is better than 2 r 3 likewise in tasawwuf one shaykh will b better. Now it's upto us to whom we make our spiritual teacher and upto what decree we follow him.

I don't know much about this but don't some mashaykh have ijazah in multiple salasil? (did I use the proper plurals?) So, perhaps there are levels for such things... for people like me, complete beginners in spiritual guidance (just to be clear: on the receiving end), it would be confusing to have multiple guides; however, for those who are much further along, perhaps it is more beneficial to have multiple guides?

Also, there are some areas that aren't exclusively related to spiritual guidance and in such situations, it just make sense to go to those who have expertise in the area (e.g. issues dealing with finances)... or am I wrong here?

[edit: sorry, I think this last one is addressed by sister Taalibah in the differentiation between an alim and a spiritual guide]

Spiritual guide:
Guidance in spiritually cleansing the heart from spiritual illnesses in accordance to shariah

each one specializing in their own field, it is not recommended to go to multiple people in the same field, it's like asking a Mufti for fatawah then going to another Mufti to ask the same ruling. You deprive yourself of benefiting fully from one particular given guidance.

I believe there will be much inconvenience and confusion if one Shaykh says do ABC and the other Shaykh says do XYZ and never go near ABC. There could be chaos.

How these shaykhs are trained or educated is one thing and their personality is another. The topic brother Muadh has touched on, romance, is difficult because the person giving the advice should be experienced in all aspects and must have a heart of gold to give advice. Merely just being given permission to give advice is not the best approach.

Brothers and sisters, not to divert this thread but a young sister asked me about tariqahs and I would appreciate your assistance here.

Insha'Allah, the young teen reads the blog and is in daily communication with me so insha'Allah keeping everything in one source will make it easier for her. Links are welcome but please bear in mind that she does not have any knowledge on the matter, so please take care to provide guidance that is progressively more complex... so, lets start with the basics insha'Allah. JazakAllah khayran.

As far as this thread is concerned then we are discussing two different matters:

Islah of a specific problem or matching of temperament: It is well known that in order to take a Shaykh in Tassawuff the temperament has to match and nobody denies this, for example Shaykh A may be the well known and credible but not matching with someone's personality type. There are innumerable examples where Ulamah have either sent a Mureed or someone enquiring about Tassawuff to another Shaykh. Does this mean that they were not competent to perform Islah? Of course not it simply means that temperament of the Mureed matched another Shaykh. The second scenario is where a person has a specific problem e.g. with lust/love/romance or anger and again Ulamah send certain people to certain Mashayh and one of the most famous examples is of Maulana Qasim Nanotwi (RA) sending a person (who had issues with his temper) to a book binder in Delhi and after a while he came back and reported that his anger was under control but surprisingly the book binder never said a word about controlling anger so how was his problem solved? Maulana Qasim Nanotwi (RA) explained that his “Kaafiyat of Hilm” was transferred into you by simply spending time in his company!

General Islah & reformation: The Maslak of current Deobandi Ulamah is of "Tawheedul-Matalib" i.e. seeking Islah from one Shaykh (only) and this is the position which Aapa Talibah has explained.

I meant point 1.

To further illustrate this point (practically) if someone has a drug problem then the most qualified Shaykh who understands drugs and addiction is Shaykh (Muti) Zubair Dudha (HA) in UK so it would make sense for a person with this sort of problem to contact a Shaykh who specialises in not only Tassawuff but this specific issue.

The Chishti head movement during Dhik’r is slightly modified in the Tareeqa of Shaykh (Hakeem) Akhtar Saheb (RA) and his Khulafah explain that our Shaykh is not only a Shaykh of Tassawuff but also a Hakeem so according to his (medical) research the head movements should be minimised due to health reasons. Responding to women with husbands (with uncontrollable anger) Shaykh (RA) prescribed not only Dhik’r but freshly squeezed lemon juice, again based on his (medical) expertise.

If someone is suffering from lust/fantasising of people of opposite gender then again the Mashaykh in our times are Khulafah of Shaykh (Hakeem) Akhtar Saheb (RA).

In the Naqshbandi Silsila of Shaykh Asif (RA) the Dhik’r is accompanied by certain Tasbeeh movements (and noise) as per the Silsilah while this is abandoned in all of the Khulafah of Peer Ghulam Habib (RA) downwards.

Point 2 is a very complex issue and way beyond my capability and understanding and I certainly I can’t discuss something which I don’t understand. I am not Bay't so I can only discuss from theoretical perspective but Dr76 (SF user) who is a Shaykh of Tassawuff made some very powerful points as to why practically it is needed in our times.

We apologise but you have been denied access to report posts in this thread. This could be due to excessively reporting posts and not understanding our forum rules. For assistance or information, please use the forum help thread to request more information. Jazakallah